The true Value of Solo Leveling

My thoughts on the trending anime

The winter 2025 anime season has been dominated by the second season adapting the hit manhwa Solo Leveling. This series has gained the highest number of ratings ever on Crunchyroll, beating One Piece and Demon Slayer. I read the manhwa a few years back, but I didn’t watch season 2 beyond watching the fight scenes on YouTube. Mostly because I had exams to prepare for, but partly because there was simply nothing else noteworthy about this series.

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the manhwa, or that the anime isn’t an excellent adaptation. A-1 Pictures and the voice cast is doing an excellent job adapting and even expanding upon the manhwa at some points. I like Solo Leveling for one reason only: because it’s fun. It’s not an amazing story by any means, but it’s something you can turn off your brain and enjoy for its sheer coolness.

But does it hold value beyond that?

My thoughts on Solo Leveling

A brief summary: this series is set in modern-day Korea, where monsters emerge from portals connected to realms known as dungeons. Hunters are humans born with powers who enter dungeons to kill monsters. Sung Jinwoo is an unusually weak hunter who, after a near-death experience in a double dungeon, is chosen by a mysterious program called the System as its sole player. This gives him the unique ability to increase his powers through quests.

There is a surprising depth to the worldbuilding of this series. The way dungeons and the hunter system works, and the changes that they make to society and government, are surprisingly well thought out. We see how high-ranked hunters are treated as both assets and threats by governments, and the struggles faced by low-ranked hunters. This is, in my opinion, the best aspect of the series. However, worldbuilding by itself cannot save this story.

Solo Leveling holds the same niche as anime like Sword Art Online and Demon Slayer: the animation is excellent, but the story is subpar. And while anime like Demon Slayer still have interesting side characters, Solo Leveling is, for all intents and purposes, a one-man show. The only character most people remember — really, the only character worth remembering — is the protagonist, Sung Jinwoo.

The series actually has a very strong beginning, and Jinwoo actually started off as an interesting character. After watching him use his intelligence and creativity to survive the double dungeon, I felt invested in him. I thought the story would deal with his trauma from the experience, which would feed into his need to grow stronger. There were elements of this throughout the first season, which is the most interesting part of the story in my opinion. Jinwoo is not yet powerful enough to simply annihilate everything in his path — he must use his creativity and the skills granted to him by the system.

From the second season, this quickly goes out of the window. Jinwoo magically shows confidence and charisma that he had previously been lacking in, and loses all personality. There is no remnant of his former self, and no memory of the adversity and trauma that he encountered. Whatever inner monologue we get merely comments on the situation, without giving much hint into how he feels about any of it.

Most fans seem to be fine with this. The one episode where Jinwoo actually shows emotions, it was heavily criticized by the fanbase. ‘Get back to aura farming’ was the general consensus.

Furthermore, as the series progresses, the series grows worse and worse at convincing me of Jinwoo’s ability to lose a fight. By the end of the second season, he massively outclasses all other hunters and monsters he faces, and we rarely if ever get to see him struggle. The anime tries to make some of the fights look closer than they are in the manhwa, but they still feel incredibly one-sided. Visual spectacles, sure, but completely lacking in tension. Why bother getting invested when you know he can’t lose anyway?

Solo Leveling as a starter anime

Just look at this. Of course it’s popular

Everything I just said about Solo Leveling makes it — well, not necessarily a well-written story — but an enjoyable one. If One Piece is a gourmet meal, then Solo Leveling is fast food. It may be empty calories, but every now and then, we all eat it. And like it.

Furthermore, Solo Leveling doesn’t have the intimidating length of other, better anime. It won’t drag on for hundreds of episodes. It shouldn’t take more than two more seasons to wrap up the plot. This helps make it more accessible. The character designs are fun, the animation is spectacular, the music is catchy, and the story is a simple underdog-to-powerhouse format that’s extremely enjoyable if you turn your brain off. In other words, it’s the perfect gateway anime.

The anime also has a lot of video game and RPG elements. Since many people are familiar with gaming mechanics like leveling up, stats, and boss fights, it should help non-anime fans ease into Solo Leveling. Moreover, unlike some other anime that require an understanding of Japanese humor or cultural references, Solo Leveling is straightforward, avoiding overly complex tropes or convoluted plotlines.

Conclusion

Yes, Solo Leveling is a blatant power fantasy. But that’s a feature, not a flaw. It’s not meant to say anything meaningful. I find that disappointing, since I think it could have. I have come to think of it as a stepping stone. We all enjoyed series like this at some point in our lives. And then we moved on to other, better things. After finishing this series, fans might look for anime that are similar. And in doing so, they may find the stories that are truly great.